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A Word with You - Sept. 9, 2010

I'd rather not have to use one of those carts to carry my groceries out to the parking lot. If you take it out there, you should be nice and return it to where it goes. Right? No, I'd rather use the mule approach, carrying every possible bag I can in my arms, my hands, hanging from my shoulders. So here I am, moving precariously toward the door of the store, with every appendage committed. Problem: how am I going to open the door that goes to the parking lot? If I start walking toward it, it remains closed, threatening my bodily welfare and my new treasures when I walk into that door. But if I just stand there, it won't open either. Well, thankfully, you know. Stores have automatic doors. The door remains closed, though, if I stand still, and it remains closed if I only walk part of the way toward it. But as I walk steadily toward it until I'm close to it - voila! - the door opens just before I need to go through it!

Funniest thing - God opens doors the same way. To help us understand how His path opens up for us, He gave us that revealing story in our word for today from the Word of God. Joshua and the Israelites are camped on the east side of the Jordan River, looking across at Canaan, the rich land that God has promised to give them. But there's a major obstacle between them and what God wants to give them - the Jordan River at flood stage. There's no way they can get what God has for them without crossing that river, and there is no apparent way to do that.

Then, as recorded in Joshua 3, beginning with verse 8, God tells Joshua, "'Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: 'When you reach the edge of Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.'" Joshua then tells the people: "As soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord - the Lord of all the earth - set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap." The Bible goes on to show the amazing result of this step of total faith - "Now the Jordan is at flood stage during the harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing...so the people crossed over...the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan."

There's an amazing scene here, but a dialog that has been, in essence, often repeated over the centuries as a child of God has stood at their own Jordan River, facing a closed door or an impossible obstacle between them and what they knew God wanted them to do. And it may be one of those times in your life right now. Like the Jews of old, you're being told by God, "It's time to move out." He's leading you out of your comfort zone. He's leading you into something bigger, better, and yes, more challenging. You're standing at the river's edge, and you've gone as far as you can go safely; as far as you can go with what you can do.

If I were one of those priests with the ark, marching toward a river overflowing its banks, I think I'd say, "Lord, how about this? As soon as you part the water, I'll walk into it." And He would say - and He may be saying to you right now, "No, as soon as you walk into the water, I'll make a way." Maybe you've been waiting for God to move before you do. But He's waiting for you to move in the direction He's leading, and then He'll part the waters, He'll open the door, He'll make a way for you. You move steadfastly in the direction of the impossible for one reason - God is going there and He's asking you to follow Him. And that is all you need to know.

That door isn't going to open until you start walking toward it. Don't just stand there any longer. Get moving toward your miracle!